USB 3 in 2008, 10 Times as Fast

psychicsword writes "Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chipmaker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires." "The current USB 2.0 version has a top data-transfer rate of 480 megabits per second, so a tenfold increase would be 4.8 gigabits per second." This should make USB hard drives easier and faster to use."

obligatory simpsons quote

[wwmedia]

Nerd: I've developed a program that downloads porn from the interet a million times faster than normal Marge: Who would need that much porn Homer: [drools]...oohhh..1 million times faster..

oh goodie

[maniac/dev/null]

Oh good. Now I get to plunk down $20+ per cable for the latest USB standard. I really like that copper USB2 cables are just about down to free from some online retailers. Looks like that will not be the case with USB3.

The irony...

[packetmon]

In an interview after the speech, Gelsinger said there's typically a one- to two-year lag between the release of the specification and the availability of the technology,

In today's news, vendors worldwide urged one another to move quickly and get IPv6 deployed by the year 2025. When asked about the one or two year lag between the release of specs and the availability of the technology, vendors quickly pointed out the timeframe it took to implement Packet Over Bongo [eagle.auc.ca] and IPv6 for Refrigerators [glocom.org]. "It's been a long time in the making (IPv6) but we've finally succeeded in getting console connectivity to the fridge. We can now via a command prompt: finger lettuce" stated the happy refrigerator engineer. We never even knew of the existence of IPv4 for refrigerators. Engineers estimate another 20-80 year wait for IPv6.

Re:Great.

[Technician]

Cue the Media Copying Discussions.

The RIAA and MPAA just joined Steve Balmer in needing new office furniture.

How exciting

[FileNotFound01]

This will come in handy when that 100,000 rpm USB drive I'm waiting for ships. It'll be faster and [even] easier to use, especially with the optional depleted uranium housing.

The speed is OS dependent

[Anonymous Coward]

with usb 2.0 hardware and drivers, Windows can get some pretty decent speeds with big hard drives, but Linux invariably falls back to 1.0 and the best rate I've seen with 2.6.any kernels is about 100kbs which translates into about 5 times dialup speed. This is somewhat below usb 2.0's theoretical capabilities, and the last backup I was able to make using linux, it took a week to backup 5 gigs to an external drive.

Re:More half assed implementations.

[Anonymous Coward]

The implementation isn't as bad as the naming convention.

Do other people have difficulty remembering which is faster, full speed or high speed?

Since they are adding optics maybe it is time to scrap the old nomenclature and adopt the following:
sub-light speed, light speed, ridiculous speed, and ludicrous speed

Re:Screw bandwidth...

[cerberusss]

Give us a standard that actually delivers enough power that you don't need an additional power cord for just about every other device already... :/

According to Intel, the new USB 3 standard will use fiber optic cable for data as well as power. The data will be modulated on a high-powered laser light signal, enough to deliver the power to spin up a harddisk, or, alternatively, burn through one solid oaken office door as well as the sales guy who was about to open said door.

Re:Anyone else here see a problem??

[aadvancedGIR]

Then I recommend you not to buy the USB-powered dildo.

Re:Great.

[xenn]

Yeah, 1.06 GB/s ought to be enough for anyone!

Re:Yeah, but..

[siwelwerd]

Hopefully they'll be less tasty than USB2 cables. My cats have destroyed 3 of them...

Re:Yeah, but..

[David_W]

Getting dirt into the connector is probably fatal.

That sounds harsh. Do they actually send someone round to do a hit or do you get electrocuted or somesuch?

No no no... remember, most optical connections use a laser. When you try to plug in the dirty connector, the laser reflects off the dirt toward you, instantly vaporizing you.